Opposition stalwart Lim Kit Siang is asking why the Umno-owned Malay daily Utusan Malaysia is silent on yesterday's controversial 'cow head' protest."If such an ultimate act of religious insensitivity, insult and offence had been committed against Islam, Utusan Malaysia would have gone to town.
"Not only with full front-page coverage and denunciation, probably half the newspaper today would be devoted to it. Why the thundering silence?" he said in a statement.
In the past, Utusan Malaysia has come under fire numerous times for carrying articles with a racial slant.
The protest in Shah Alam yesterday was carried out by residents of Section 23 who were upset over the proposal to relocate a Hindu temple to their area.
Meanwhile, Lim said all patriotic Malaysians of goodwill and reason must condemn in the strongest possible terms the cow head sacrilege.
"In other multi-religious societies, such an ultimate act of religious insensitivity, insult and offence to one of the major religions in the country would have led to mayhem, riots and loss of lives.
"This bespeaks of the high degree of maturity, mutual tolerance, goodwill and co-existence that cool heads had prevailed in the response to such a deplorable act of sacrilege," he added.
Lim said in a multi-religious society, the act of sacrilege to one religion must be regarded as an act of sacrilege to all other religions and the entire nation.
He added that the incident should serve as an overarching consensus of all political parties, mass media, NGOs and Malaysians if we cherish and love this nation.
Police rapped for slow response
The DAP leader also commended Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for his quick response in ordering the Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan to take swift action against those responsible.
"But why was the police so slow in its response to such a public act of religious sacrilege, when tardiness in dealing with 'national security threats' had never been a weakness of the Royal Malaysian Police Force?
"Police intelligence cannot be so obsolete that it is not aware of the act of sacrilege being planned and executed, when the organisers had taken pains to ensure that their protest would get the maximum mass media coverage – reported, photographed and videoed," he said.
With two days to go before Aug 31, Lim said: "The sacrilege must serve as an ominous warning that Najib's first national day celebration as prime minister will go down as a 'Black National Day' if the genie of racism and religious chicanery are allowed to get out of the bottle."
"In plural Malaysia there is not just one genie but many genies threatening to tear apart the multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-cultural fabric of Malaysia," he added.
1 comment:
Not just the utusan but berita hairan as well.
No Lembu was reported .
The "kepala lembu" seems to be missing.
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